Thanks for your comments on this. I hired the Ortlieb Aqua Zoom in the US for hiking all day through a river up 'the narrows' and was quite impressed with it. Although I didn't submerge the bag it kept my SLR dry from all the splashes.

I was just looking for somewhere to buy either of these two bags and found your review, so thanks for the feedback on the 'Plus' version of the bag. It sounds like the Ortlieb Aqua Zoom (none plus version) is the better bag to go for.

I take it the camera bag is still performing well for you?

It is working well yes. I've not come across anything to beat it.

It's kept the camera bone-dry in torrential downpours.

The only thing to fail, and really this isn't surprising, is the webbing attachment point that I use to hold it on to my rucksack. It's the flat one at the side that's obviously intended to be usd to strap a belt through.

But it only started to tear once it had carried 2.5 kilos of camera and lenses over rough ground for about thirty days in total. And even then it really only failed after a tight squeeze going up a clough scramble in the Peak. Not at all what it was meant to stand up to!

To be honest I don't think it was ever designed to be loaded that heavily and attached via that webbing at the same time (it takes the load fine in all other regards).

Overall it keeps the camera dry and protected which are the main features I need.  It can't magically make the camera lighter or smaller of course

I've yet to get around to creating a camera harness to atach to the rucksack to take the load off the Aquazoom but I'll blog it when I do...